Will I love Yellow Notebook?

This is the diary Australian writer Helen Garner kept during a difficult period of her life: the period when she was married to (and eventually separated from) her third husband.

The writing is exquisite, which is why I love this book. Garner records the intricacies and intimacies of the marriage in such exacting terms. Her observations about marriage and the world leave me breathless. 

The Australian writer Helen Garner has been publishing for nearly 50 years but only recently has her work taken off in the United States. I had never heard of her until a friend gave me one of  Garner’s published diaries, and as I read I wondered why I had never heard of her.

It’s an absolute pleasure reading her honest, witty, intelligent take on her world and her often amusing, painful encounters with colleagues, family, and strangers. She has an exceptional eye for the small details that make life rich, the quirks and traits in other people that make them… show more.